She accepts the waterskin and drinks a lot from it. "Thank you," she says while giving it back to Steve. She then looks up at Konrad. "Sure, you can learn to heal yourself. You just need a few years of training at a monastery."

"You're welcome." Steve takes back the waterskin and has some himself. Fizzing magic is hard work. After a deep drink he sighs in pleasure and reattaches it to his backpack. He's content to listen quietly to the conversation though he looks more and more asleep on his feet as time passes.

"Nadia," - he tries to refocus - "that's part of the reason we're being so secretive about our motives. Between us, we have a way to guard against it, for the most part. Normally we'd share it with you, but there's one problem: we can only do it one more time, and may have dire need of it soon."

Then pulls out the Orb and shows it to her - "You press this thing against your forehead. It goes in. If you're Human, it becomes sort of symbiotic with you, protecting your mind from... well, we don't know all it can do yet, but it does prevent magical brainwashing for one. It can also be dangerous though, so it has to be handled with care. Another reason we're in this mess, is some fuckers backstabbed us, and tried to use these to have us brainwashed. If i hadn't already had my own, there would be someone else in my body right now."

Mihai sighs - "The longer you wear it, the more attuned it becomes to you. Soaks up your memories until it's got a perfect copy of your entire mind. Eventually, only you can wear it. If you then put it in someone else..." - he trails off slightly - "...you get the picture."

"More than just memories, it can store your will. The way we defeated Snicker, was we shoved these into the mind of someone who was possessed. We were there, every bit as real as we are here, and brawled it down in the Host's mind." - He lets it sink in - "That's how powerful these things are, though your approach would have certainly saved us a lot of trouble."